


Story of My Life

by Cottonstones



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, First Kiss, Season/Series 03A Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-17
Updated: 2013-12-17
Packaged: 2018-01-04 22:07:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,366
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1086213
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cottonstones/pseuds/Cottonstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Boyd isn't unpopular, but he's not popular, either. He's nothing. He's nonexistent in the halls of Beacon Hills High.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Story of My Life

For a long time, Boyd is alone. He's pretty used to the deal. His family moves around a lot, so he's always switching schools. He never has time to make friends and, frankly, he wouldn't know how to even if he did stick around long enough to get to know someone. Now he lives in Beacon Hills, having arrived in the odd city at fourteen years old, staying for what his parents called an "undetermined amount of time." That time slipped by and now Boyd is verging on sixteen. He's spent almost three years existing within the student population at Beacon Hills High School.

Boyd's life at Beacon Hills High is strange. He's not exactly among the league of the unpopular. No one picks on him, probably because he experienced a growth spurt over the summer and now he towers over most of the other kids in his grade. No one gives him any trouble, not even the usual racist shit that he’d encountered and sadly grown to expect from his other schools. Boyd's not unpopular, but he's definitely not one of the cool kids. He has the same lunch period as Lydia Martin, as that god-awful Jackson and the other lacrosse players, and Boyd hates that he knows their names even if he's never talked to them. Most of the time, while he's studying or listening to music or actually spending the lunch period eating, he'll be in the prime location to watch the cool kids at their table. These times, he almost feels like one of those people whose job it is to watch animals. He doesn't mean to, really, but he studies the way Lydia flicks her wave of strawberry-blonde hair over her shoulder before she leans in toward Jackson, the effortless way that Danny makes the rest of the table laugh.

Boyd isn't unpopular, but he's not popular, either. He's nothing. He's nonexistent in the halls of Beacon Hills High.

Then, _then_ , Scott McCall becomes popular. This only bothers Boyd because he had had what he always considered an unspoken alliance with Scott and his permanent sidekick, Stiles. They weren't cool, either, despite the two of them somehow making it onto the lacrosse team. They ate lunch together, hung out together, and watched the cool kids with the same longing that Boyd knew all too well. He had thought in those times of seeing his own behavior reflected back at him...'at least I'm not the only one.' But now Scott is popular and Stiles has a girlfriend and is flying up the ranks of the lacrosse team.

Now Boyd is alone again.

There's a plus side to being a quiet observer to the high school chaos. He sees the shift in the school before anyone else catches it. Scott's been off for a long time and Stiles is even squirrelier than usual. Boyd knows that he's right when Erica changes right before his eyes. He had noticed her before, but they weren't friends. They maybe talked once or twice, but that was it. She was nothing like he'd taken her for. Boyd knows that it's not puberty that has Erica strutting around school like she's a completely new person. Whatever it is, it reminds him of Scott.

To his surprise, Erica comes to him. He's taking small bites of his slice of greasy school pizza in between reading _The Cider House Rules_ when she slips into the hard plastic seat across from him. Boyd, as a person who has had little to no interactions in school for three years, can instantly feel eyes on him, everyone in the cafeteria watching Erica and, by proxy, him. He knows that they're thinking the same thing that he is: What is _she_ doing sitting with _him_?

"You know you don't talk much?" Erica says, reaching across the stained surface of the lunch room table to steal a soggy fry from Boyd's tray. Boyd sets his book down and reels for something to say. Three years and here's his big chance. Now if his mind would just cooperate.

"You, uh...look nice today." That's really all that comes to him. Big chance blown.

Erica, though...she smiles, and it's not mean but it's thoughtful, maybe a little surprised.

"Thanks." She flicks her blonde hair over her shoulder with Lydia Martin perfection. "You're only the hundredth person to tell me that today."

"Oh," Boyd says.

Erica grins at him. "Somehow, I think you mean it more sincerely than the others did." She steals another fry from Boyd's tray and takes a quick, vicious bite of the end. "You always eat lunch alone. Do you like being alone?"

"I..." Boyd stalls. No one had ever asked him and he had never questioned it. He took it as a fact of life. He didn't enjoy being alone, but it's all that he's ever been.

Erica waves a hand at him, her nails longer than Boyd has ever seen, colored a deep blood-red. "I don't think you want to be all alone. I think I can help you." Boyd watches her as she finishes off the fry.

Then Boyd meets Derek. He now knows why Scott McCall is so popular and why Erica is a brand-new girl. Derek smiles at him; Erica's blood-red nails cling to the sleeve of Boyd's shirt.

And Boyd isn't so alone anymore.

He bleeds through his sweater, leaving little droplets of crimson across the pure, white, manufactured ice. He still finds himself struggling to figure out why he even accepted the job of night maintenance for the ice rink. Why ice? Wasn't he punishing himself enough already? Boyd clutches at his side, the wound sticky against the fabric. Erica had said that this might happen. Erica had said that it would be okay.

Then Boyd becomes popular. He finds it almost humorous now that he's popular when high school popularity is the last thing on his mind most of the time. Still, people know his name. He has more than a best friend, more than a team, something better than all of that. He has a goddamn _pack_ , a bond greater than stupid high school romance.

Boyd plays lacrosse, has a full table sitting with him at lunch. People laugh at his jokes, he wins the game for his team, and Scott McCall watches _him_ for a change. He experiences the first full moon. Erica teaches him how to catch scents in the breeze, how to focus his concentration. She teaches him because Derek is preoccupied. He comes to know what it feels like to be shot with what feels like a million arrows, each one a piercing burn, Erica screaming the whole time, Allison’s determined gaze, the rest of the world foggy. He comes to know what being electrocuted feels like, too.

***

Boyd and Erica are sitting in the closed-off, darkened room of the bank vault, going stir-crazy from being trapped for so long, being forced to be human. At least this time he's not all alone. He can feel Erica's thigh pressed against his, the steady rhythm of her breathing quiet like his own.

"You know, when I was a kid, I always wanted to watch the lunar eclipse," Erica says, and she tips her head back against the giant cement beam that the two of them are leaning against. She looks at Boyd with tired eyes, her human eyes, and it's been so long since Boyd has seen them that he had almost forgotten what they looked like. "I wanted to make one of those little viewer things, you know? Out of paper plates or whatever. I never did it. I was too afraid to look at it without one. I kinda regret it now."

"I heard they make you go blind," Boyd says, "if that makes you feel any better."

Erica laughs something small. "What do you think happens to us during a lunar eclipse?"

Boyd shrugs, ears pricked for any sound even though he knows that he won't find any. He doesn't mention it out loud, but he's given up hope on Derek ever finding the two of them. "I'm not sure," he murmurs quietly.

"I hope it makes us stronger," she says. Erica's face is tipped down, all of her blonde hair hiding her from him. "I really fucking hope it does."

"I bet it does," Boyd says. "It will," he adds after a moment. He’s not sure that he really believes it, but he wants to, and more importantly he wants _her_ to believe it.

In the darkness of the vault, Erica's hand finds Boyd's. She slides their fingers together, tangling them. Boyd squeezes, just enough to let her know that he's there with her. Together, they can face anything.

"Boyd," Erica says. Just once, even though he hates it, he wishes that she'd call him Vernon.

"Hm?"

"I bet," she starts, and he can feel the smile creeping into her voice, "I bet, even with your new wolf powers that you never kissed anybody before." Boyd snorts and Erica lifts her head to look up at him, grinning again. "Well?" she asks a second later.

"Well," Boyd says, a flush rising to his cheeks, even though this is the last thing that he should be embarrassed about. "I guess I was waiting for the right girl."

Erica's face grows thoughtful and calm, the artificial lights from the outer rooms filtering in through the minimal windows and casting a strange glow across her features. Her eyes sparkle at him. "What kind of girl?" she asks him.

"I don't know...someone pretty and smart who really liked me."

"Hey, Boyd," Erica says. Her hands find the collar of his jacket and she tugs a little so that he'll look at her. "Did you know I'm pretty? I'm smart, too! And, oh, wouldn't you know, I think you're awesome."

Boyd watches her face. Despite their werewolf status and their dire situation, he's still nervous. Erica smiles up at him. Boyd doesn't say anything, but he leans into the small space between them, slow, so she'll have time to move away if he had read this all wrong. Erica doesn't move. Their mouths meet in a soft, innocent press, like kids far younger than their age. Erica smells good, even though they've been trapped here for God only knows how long. Boyd touches her hair, lets his fingers trace the natural curls. Erica sighs against his lips and opens her mouth, the warm touch of her tongue tracing his bottom lip. Boyd has never kissed, isn't sure what he's doing, but he opens up for her and his tongue meets hers. Erica is a good kisser, so she leads him, just as she had in school, in the beginning of his wolf days.

There's a clattering from outside of the vault. The two of them break away, the reality of the situation interrupting the teenage normalcy. Boyd knows that he'd given up a lot when he decided to abandon his human life and join Derek, doesn't regret it most of the time, but now, shivering in the dark with Erica beside him, he wishes that they could go back and be teenagers. Maybe he could've worked up the nerve to ask her out just as they were: two humans. Erica rests her head on Boyd's shoulder, their hands still joined together.

A week after their first and only kiss, Erica has had enough of their confines. She goes after one of the alphas, Kali. It doesn't matter how much Boyd yells at her not to do it, how much he pleads with Erica and Kali to stop. It isn’t over until Erica is bleeding on the cold marble floor of the vault. Her eyes seek him out, flickering around the room wildly until she finds him. Erica looks panicked; Boyd feels the same terror burning through him. He can't help her and, trapped like this, she won't heal, especially not from an alpha wound.

"Boyd," she says, her voice a whine of pain. Boyd doesn't even want to touch her in fear of hurting her any further. "Boyd," she says again, reaching out for him. Her hand never makes it to him, falling instead mere inches from his face. Erica is gone. Just like that.

And, again, Boyd is alone.

Derek comes too late to save Erica, but Boyd is somehow spared the same fate. By now, he'd give anything to go back and eat lunch alone as long as it meant that Erica could still be alive. Fuck, he would spend the rest of his life alone if it meant she could live again. Derek tries to carry the burden of her death as much as Boyd does, the two of them shouldering a responsibility for their fallen member. Even Isaac weeps for her.

Boyd wants nothing more than to exact revenge on the alphas that trapped him. He especially wants to take down Kali, for Erica’s sake. He's sure of nothing and filled with no emotion besides desperation for his plan to work. Of course, like most things in Beacon Hills, the plan goes awry. Kali is fine – even Derek can't take her on. No one can. Just as he once accepted his loneliness, his nonexistence in the high school scene, Boyd now accepts that his life story will be a short one. Eventful, yes, but short. He doesn’t blame Derek, not really. Boyd wanted the same thing that Scott had, the same thing that Erica had wanted. He wanted to be better, do better, and it didn’t pan out. He doesn't even blame Derek when his clawed hands pierce Boyd's chest.

The water on the floor is cold. It reminds him of the constant chill of the vault’s floor, the shiver of the skating rink. Visions of blonde hair and a tired voice swim over him. Even in those last moments, he can feel Derek's anguish, the final bond between alpha and beta.

Boyd can feel himself slipping away, but he isn't scared. He has a feeling, a small thread of consciousness, that tells him that, once he gets to the other side, he won't be alone.


End file.
